


Part 2.1 - The Hotel

by comebackjessica



Series: Inventing The Universe – The Vampire Series [2]
Category: Peaky Blinders (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Vampire, M/M, Useless Vampires, Vampires
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-02 03:57:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20269639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/comebackjessica/pseuds/comebackjessica
Summary: We travel back in time a bit. There will be murder, there will be tension and, most importantly, there will be blood.





	Part 2.1 - The Hotel

As far as Alfie Solomons was concerned, there was only one minor setback to that century, namely– the booze. Back in the day, he actually owned a proper vineyard in the south of France (1780-something it was probably, yeah). So that... whatever the fuck he was drinking now, _ that _ would have been fucking unacceptable then and truth be told, was pretty fucking unacceptable now. It so happened, however, that the bottle he was currently emptying in the dark – by himself, in what looked like some old lady’s giant wardrobe full of expensive furs – was stolen, so who was he to judge, really. Considering the fact that Alfie was also hiding from the rest of the party, with the whole situation of him being uninvited and whatnot, well, that made the stolen champagne all the more drinkable in the long run.

He shouldn’t even be at this pathetic party in the first place. Had it not been for the opportunity to see his newest fledgling in action, he would have stayed home. But, as it happens, he was also very aware of certain Russian royalty and their family jewels – both of which were currently getting drenched in whiskey downstairs. So... there was always that. Again, who was Alfie to refuse some proper diamonds? Since the Russians (and the diamonds!) came to his London territory all by their lonesome, they were officially game. There was no reasoning with Alfie when it came to precious stones.

The Russian thing seemed undeniably more exciting than Tommy, but still – King Shelby trying to convince his idiot family everything about him was still normal, now _ that _ deserved a proper audience. Alfie was getting there, of course, to the audience part, slowly but surely, but seeing as the minks were so soft and comfortable and the champagne so bubbly… Well, he was old and lazy, alright? So sue him, he was. A couple of solid gulps later, Alfie decided to summon his little progeny instead because damn it, he was older! And lazier. The little shit should come to him.

“Fucking move.” The heavy wardrobe door opened with a squeak and then immediately closed as familiar, cold hands pushed Alfie farther into furs, shawls and abandoned fancy shoes. “And give me that.” The champagne was snatched away, too, and that, if you asked Alfie, was just fucking rude at this point. Not to mention unnecessary since there was nearly nothing left.

“Want me to massage yer feet, too? What you doin’ in my closet, Tom?!”

“It’s Polly’s room, Alfie. What the fuck are you doing here?” 

“Well, what’re ya doin’ in it, Tommy?” 

“You summoned me!”

“Oh, yeah. Did that, didn’t I?” Alfie took the champagne away but Tommy snatched it from him again, downed the rest in one go and put the bottle to the side. “I should’ve asked you to bring more.”

“As if.” Tommy looked around them and furrowed his brow. “I don’t remember inviting you to the opening.” Why exactly was Alfie having an existential crisis in the closet? “Or rather, Polly inviting you. What are you doing here?”

No, definitely not. She wouldn’t invite him. Not to her brand new establishment that was this fine hotel. Cecil, was it? Ah, no. _ Cicero. _ Freshly opened, newly painted, covered in golden wallpaper imported all the way from Vienna and completely and absolutely prepared for laundering the Shelby family dirty money.

“How’d ya find me then?” Alfie growled. “Or are ya just tired of the noise? Fuckin’ nuisance, if you ask me, right, inviting people to a hotel party and letting them rampage all over the bloody place.”

“Please. I could smell you a mile away.” Tommy looked at him pensively in the dark. “You and the Russians. Useful thing, that.” He pointed to his nose, hinting to his newly acquired gifts. 

“Aye, well…” Alfie tried to adjust himself amongst the numerous unshapely items but failed miserably. “Where are the Russians, then?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” Tommy, as usual, dodged the answer with another question.

“Nah, mate, pretty fuckin’ opposite, actually,” Alfie barked in response and shoved Tommy slightly to the side, making a point of grabbing his thigh. “Fuck! I can’t see anything in this mess, Tommy. Shed some light on the situation, eh?”

“What?” Tommy hissed and slapped Alfie’s hand away. 

“Do yer sparkle, I can’t see shit!”

_ “Alfie, you can see in the dark!” _

“Aye, but I’m still particularly fuckin’ proud of ya, Tommy, so do show off, mate.”

Before Tommy got the chance for any rebuttal, a loud gunshot bang put the party downstairs to a halt. While Tommy’s first instinct was to rush downstairs and see what happened, Alfie’s was not. He remained motionless among the furs and frocks before grabbing Tommy’s thigh just a little tighter. 

“Stay here,” Alfie said, before leaving their hideout first. He could hear the commotion downstairs as clearly as if he was actually there and, quite honestly, it was not pretty.

“Get out of my way, Alfie.” Tommy, unable to harness all of his gifts just yet, was growing impatient and tried to shove his way to the door.

“Stay.” Alfie grabbed his arm to stop him but Tommy wiggled out of that with ease. “You don’t wanna go there, Tom.”

“Why the fuck not?” Tommy barked.

“It’s Grace.”

***

Opportunistic as he was, Alfie was not completely heartless. After ransacking the Russian princess’ room and draining her escort dry, respectively, he hid in a dark corner in the lobby to eavesdrop on the situation. His primary concern was currently absent from the scene, though judging by the number of bodies being wheeled out through the back door, Tommy must have taken the news pretty roughly. There were a few policemen around, too, mostly pretending to be working than anything else. Except for one, that is the one who seemed to be leading the case, which subsequently made his dick grow by an additional thirty inches or so.

“And the Russians, Miss Gray?” The inspector asked, not even bothering to glance up from his notes. Alfie figured the guy was probably already building a story in his head.

“The name’s Shelby,” Polly said indifferently and downed her glass of rum. “And I don’t know them. Half the people at this party were accompanied by someone I’ve never met.”

“I’m asking, _ Miss Shelby _, because as you can see they’re all dead or unaccounted for.” The inspector scowled. “All except for the duchess. Isn’t that a coincidence?”

“The princess.”

“Whatever.”

Arthur and John exchanged quick looks but said nothing. It was one thing if Polly felt the need to rile up Cambell like that, another if she actually thought it would do the hotel any good.

“It is,” Polly said calmly and accepted another glass from the maid. “A coincidence.”

“Wasn’t she in London to do business with you Birmingham lot, eh?”

“Hardly.” Polly laughed coldly and waved the maid away. She left, the pretty blond thing, but not before giving both Shelby brothers a particularly sultry look.

“What business would I have with some destitute Cossack?” Polly snorted. “Wait, don’t answer that, inspector Cambell. I don’t particularly care for your opinion tonight.” She stood up and waved her hand around, spilling rum everywhere. The smell made Alfie nostalgic. 

“Search my person, inspector, go the fuck ahead! Search my room, search my guests… if there are any left after this night, that is. I don’t care. Strip this place to pieces or better yet! Lock it down until you find the murderer,” she snorted dismissively. “You won’t find anything. I guarantee it.”

“Aye, that seems to be the case,” Campbell gave her a stern look. “You’re hiding the truth from me, Miss Shelby. Like the husband, for example.”

“I’m not married.” Polly made a dumbfounded face and continued to sip her drink with a smirk.

_ “The victim’s husband!” _

Polly sneered at him, visibly satisfied with having enraged him.

“I’m not his keeper but I would guess he’s with his wife’s body,” she hissed. “And since my nephew is grieving, I ask that you respect that, inspector. Good evening.”

***

As it turned out, Tommy wasn’t grieving. What he did was, he hid in the cooling storage in the kitchens and did unspeakable things to the body. Or maybe he didn’t, Alfie couldn’t be sure since the whole scene was drenched in blood and it was impossible to tell whose was it. The fact of the matter was that when he sneaked into the storage, Tommy had his arms around Grace who was stretched out on the long butcher’s table, pale and positively fucking dead. And Tommy was sobbing like a baby.

“What the fuck are you doing with that?” Alfie grabbed his arm in some sort of fruitless attempt to comfort the other man but had to duck from Tommy’s flying fist instead.

_ “Leave!” _Tommy said, in a deep and unnatural voice. When Alfie’s eyes focused again in the darkness, he saw that Tommy’s looked frenzied: bloodshot, glistening and feral.

“Nah, I won’t do that, mate, come on. Leave her be. Come here.” Alfie took Tommy’s hand, just as lifeless and as cold as Grace’s must have been. “What are you doing with her? Come here.”

To Alfie’s absolute surprise, it worked. Tommy detached himself from the bloodied corpse and let the other man held him. To be precise, he clutched at Alfie’s shirt as if Alfie was the only thing in the world to keep him from falling.

“I was… trying to bring her back.”

A heavy silence fell between them, disrupted only by the slow _ drip, drip, drip _of blood that was now gathering in a large puddle on the previously white floor tiles.

“You what, Tommy?” Alfie was doing his best to stay calm but the fact of the matter was, right, that if he heard correctly, his moronic fucking fledgling had just drunk blood _ from the dead,_ which he hoped was nothing, really, he truly did, but couldn’t shake the feeling that it was one of those basic vampire manual chapters which stated in bold _ to not do exactly that. _

“I was… she…”

Alfie wrapped his arms around him, feeling every shiver going through Tommy. All right. Fine. He can fix this… (Do vampires even have a gag reflex?)

None of the theories Alfie had to come up within the span of fifteen seconds or so were put to the test, however, since their little cuddle session was abruptly canceled due to a terribly loud fucking shriek originating from the butcher’s table.

**Author's Note:**

> If you're interested in seeing more of the fanart I've done for this series, I post all of them on my tumblr.


End file.
